Sick
by Kount Xero
Summary: This is the fictionalized version of a dream I had a while back: an unearthly disease putting Torchwood 3 members in peril. A short, visceral one-shot. WARNING: Contains graphic and descriptive violence, one instance of swearing, and graphic death.


"_**Sick"**_

Darkness had taken over the hospital completely. The only companion the darkness had was the red, blinking lights of the lockdown. The blood red illumination, however brief, only served to put on display the hanging phone receptors, abandoned wheelchairs, I.V. tubes, surgical instruments lying about, gurneys toppled over or simply forgotten, hanging lights, patient charts lying all across the floor and nothing more. There was no sound, not a whisper, not a word.

What disturbed the darkness in its most sincere and total moment of glory was a little, dull, yellow light standing above the escalator doors. The display was a countdown, slowly ticking back from _22_. As it ticked, the darkness took no heed of it. Undisturbed, it continued to advance when the red drew back and retreat when the red advanced.

_10. 9. 8._

Sounds were disturbing the delightfully horrid silence. Sounds of cloth, what sounded like muffled grunts. The ticks continued, the darkness returned to its obliviously infesting state.

_7. 6. 5. 4._

From beneath the silence emerged a sound – almost guttural, struggling to be heard against other, mashed, confused and convoluted cacophony of moans and groans. The sounds disturbed the darkness, stirred it awake from its blissfully drunk state.

_3._

Louder now, loud and a bit clearer, the sound of a scream unable to find its way through, unable to rush out.

_2._

The swish and swush of cloth, the thuds of impact, the strained voice of desperation and struggle and skin of his teeth.

_1._

The word started to emerge as the counter ticked its last.

_G._

As the metal doors slowly, agonizingly, opened, a face tore through, only to be stopped mid-way by two, scarred, bleeding hands covered with boils and gashes. The pair of blue eyes belonging to the face were full of despair. A hand was pulling the disheveled pitch-black hair. His split chin in another palm, his pointy cheekbones being pulled, his teeth clenched against each other.

"So..." he let out, almost in tears, "_…SICK!"_

The fingers straining against his face left bloodied marks on his skin, stripped it to the bare flesh underneath as he, with one last, agonizing effort, threw himself out of the confined space of the escalator. As he fell forward, his double-breasted, blue-grey RAF greatcoat swirled around him, ensnaring him. He crashed onto the ground, his coat scattering. His boots were beating the ground, in desperate attempt to put some distance in between himself and the malice behind him. He tried to crawl away, his scarred, bleeding hands scratching the cold surface of the hospital floor.

He lifted his head up to see clearly as he started to crawl away in total panic. His face was bleeding, too. With hurting hands, he reached for the holster of his trusted Webley .38. Taking it, he turned around, to face his enemy.

_The Infected. That was what they had called them, The Infected. A pandemic, a plague of epic proportions – an airborne virus tampering with the high brain functions and using them to only fuel the body, and feed the lower brain functions. They had been certain that it hadn't originated on Earth. He himself hadn't heard anything like it._

"FUCK... YOUUUUUUUUUU!" he screamed, pulling the trigger as hard as he could. Each recoil sent shivers down his spine, fired up his nerves and forced his mind and body acknowledge his pain.

_An unearthly sickness… they were only there to investigate. To find the source of this alien disease, which, apparently, was designed only for humans._

No more bullets. He threw the gun away, returned to his crawling. Pushing the ground, he stood up, stepping on the skirt of his coat in the process. Managing to stand up, he peered over his shoulder – The Infected were still advancing. Their slow, dragging steps and mutilated bodies made him shiver.

_Perhaps it had been another Sleeper Cell. The first one they had silenced had said the others were coming. Perhaps they didn't need to invade Earth so much as neutralize it's livestock. Perhaps the virus would later evolve to take out all life – make animals cannibalize each other and themselves in the end, make corpses of flowers…_

He broke in a run. He hadn't taken two steps when something crashed against his leg, sending him flying forward… and down. He shattered on the floor. He tried to lift himself up, but a shoe landing on his spine prevented him. Pinned to the floor, he tried to turn his head, to see his attacker.

His once-handsome face now a mess of muscle, hanging skin and bone. His cute hair fallen out, to expose his scalp. Half of his face had skin attached to it still. One of his trademark suits, torn, holed, exposing his skin that was peeling away.

"Ianto!" he exclaimed, a word that had no meaning for his attacker, "Ianto, please… it's me, Jack…" he looked further behind, caught a glimpse of The Infected, closing in on them, "It's me… Ianto… IANTO!"

_He hadn't been infected- no. That wasn't true. The peeling skin, the bleeding hands were proof enough that he was infected. But his inability to die was keeping him alive – alive enough to be wounded by the virus, but not killed or 'converted' like the others. Internally, he was cursing Rose for giving him this… this curse. This unwanted obligation, this unwanted reflex of continuing to live._

Ianto Jones wouldn't even flinch as he pressured Jack's spine.

He kicked upwards, hitting him squarely on the knee. As his attacker buckled and fell, he knelt up, to stand, to prance forward. He would mourn for him later. Now wasn't the time.

As he tried to lurch forward, something crashed onto his head, sending him toppling over and crashing on his left arm. He didn't need to look up – the jeans and the 'hip' shoes gave it away.

"Owen!" Jack tried to rise, but Owen Harper's kick sent him rolling on the floor, only to crash against the wall. His nose had been broken, and the skin on it was peeling away, exposing the crumbling muscle tissue. The pain brought tears to his eyes. Before he could even turn, a metal pipe came into his field of vision, sending him further up the wall as his neck strained and a disk slid. His head crashed against the wall – a few of his teeth flew out of his mouth, followed by blood.

The young, once-beautiful, coy and shy corpse of a woman chose his right kneecap to break next. It crippled him, sent him screaming. He could barely keep his eyes open. Tears, blood, and god knew what (perhaps the skin on his forehead?) was blocking his vision. But from that gap, he saw one eye – her other eye had fallen out.

"ToSHIKO!" he screamed, "STOP!" he rose his arm to prevent the next blow, the pipe, swung at such a force, shattered his bones into pieces. As he screamed, he managed to use his wounded leg to trip Toshiko Sato.

Stumbling, limping, trying to escape still, his attempt was thwarted by Ianto. As he fell, Ianto rose his hand to the other Infected, so as to say, _stop._

As Jack tried to rise once more, for the last time, lacking the energy to try again if he was put down again, he indeed was put down. By a well-placed punch. A similar punch had sent him crashing against the floor of the Hub once… in an ill-advised _c'oup detat._ His death at the hands of Owen Harper had come next, but he remembered that punch. The punch of Gwen Cooper.

Jack knew that there was little hope for him now. He could only look up to her. He imagined what his once-handsome face must look like. A poor excuse for a nose, skin ripped apart, jawline shattered, teeth missing, bloodied and tear-eyed. He tried to speak, and managed to, miraculously being able to shape entire syllables without lisping.

"Gwen…" he sobbed, "Not you… please… please not you… please… Gwen…"

Gwen approached him, crouched next to him. Jack's old, blue eyes lit up with hope – maybe she _could _fight it! Maybe she _could _be resisting the infection. He pressed on as Gwen's alien, empty, glazed eyes observed him, curiously, cautiously.

"It's me, Gwen, it's Jack… I seem to be resisting… this. I can help you… help me… help me up… please, tell me that-"

Gwen's hand –almost skeletal, nothing but bone and muscle- rose to his face, almost affectionately.

"Please…" Jack's voice quivered, as did his eyes, "Please… no…"

Grabbing a handful of his hair, Gwen kept his head still as she pressed her palm against his skin. He could feel every single one of his pores, the map of her fingerprints, burning against his face. He screamed. By God, he screamed inhumanly. Gwen's hand on his hair relaxed then – but her other hand dug deeper, her fingernails tearing through muscle, digging towards his skull.

Jack didn't see her free hand reach for the heaviest blunt object nearby – something resembling a lead pipe, possibly ripped off of a gurney.

Gwen pulled Jack to his feet. Barely able to stand, Jack turned towards Ianto for help, begging him with his eyes. Before he could utter a syllable, or even make a sound, Ianto's blunt weapon crashed onto his face. He was about to stumble back from the force of the blow when Gwen's foot crashed onto the back of his injured knee, sending him onto the floor. On his knees, defeated, amidst the circle of foes, he tried to see through the pain.

The blows came, one after another after another after another. Each blow to his head sent him to a different direction, took more skin. One made his left eye pop out. The next tore that eye away. Another took his nose whole. Another shattered what whole teeth he had left. Another broke his jaw whole, dislocated it. Another almost tore off his scalp whole, and the next actually did. He was floating, directionless, drifting, dizzy with the pain, confused by the constant force applied to his head. They didn't miss a blow. The final one, or so he thought, sent him swirling away towards Gwen. His remaining eye registered that it was her right before Gwen's weapon crashed onto his skull, breaking it.

What fell onto the floor of the red-lit hospital floor was nothing more than a broken skull attached to a more or less whole body. His crooked, teethless jaw remained open, his fractured skull throwing the broken, disconnected chunk onto the floor, his brain leaking slowly out of that gap and his mouth. The low thud made by the skull wasn't heard amidst the moans and groans of The Infected.

Then, the silence came. Then, the nothingness came. Then, the blissful darkness came. Ah yes, there _was_ something moving in the dark. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Not anymore.

Captain Jack Harkness was dead.


End file.
